


Drown the Sky

by LyricalWandering



Category: Dangan Ronpa - All Media Types, Dangan Ronpa 3: The End of 希望ヶ峰学園 | The End of Kibougamine Gakuen | End of Hope's Peak High School
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Background Asahina Aoi, F/M, Falling In Love, Friendship/Love, Grief/Mourning, Hurt/Comfort, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, Naegiri - Freeform, Naegiri Week, Naegiri Week 2020, Side-Hope Spoilers, Survival, Tears, and cried while writing this, dr3 spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-09
Updated: 2020-12-09
Packaged: 2021-03-09 22:47:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,314
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27973915
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LyricalWandering/pseuds/LyricalWandering
Summary: He lifted his right hand and numbly brushed it against his cheek. What remained of her blood on his skin left behind a faded streak, and it served to remind him of the heartless color in the sky.*Spoilers for DR3 and Side-Hope ahead, so please beware!*
Relationships: Kirigiri Kyoko & Naegi Makoto, Kirigiri Kyoko/Naegi Makoto
Comments: 10
Kudos: 52





	Drown the Sky

**Author's Note:**

> For Naegiri Week 2020's Day 3 Prompt, "Sunset". I would like you all to know that I cried my eyes out writing this at 4am last week even imagining Makoto having to face grief like this. Big oof. So just a little heads up, things will be getting emotional in this story. Takes place at the very end of Danganronpa Side-Hope. Without further ado, here it is!

The sun was setting to the west. He watched as it began to sink into the sea, leaving behind a brilliant trail of orange and pink in it's wake, like brush strokes of color painting the world's canvas sky. It was breathtaking in a way that made his heart ache; ache with equal parts hope, equal parts despair.

As he kept his eyes trained on the boat that now carried the Remnants of Despair back to their sanctuary on Jabberwock Island, Makoto Naegi wondered about the possibility of an afterlife. 

Was she up there as the sun set, he wondered? Watching him as he silently said goodbye to the friends he'd brought back from the brink, a nearly impossible success that had only been achieved thanks to the sharp mind of the one woman he'd always wanted by his side?

While he was making silent vows, he knew with a solemnness that came from deep within that he would never love again. She had been the light of his life, his one true hope. The girl of his dreams that he'd never gotten the chance to be true to. His very best friend. The idea of life without her made him feel smaller and more lost than he'd surely ever felt before.

He lifted his right hand and numbly brushed it against his cheek. What remained of her blood on his skin left behind a faded streak, and it served to remind him of the heartless color in the sky.

"Kyoko..." he whispered, even her name feeling precious on his tongue. He thought that he could feel her then; the presence of her overwhelming him like it always had when she was beside him, or more accurately, leading the way. His vision blurred as sudden, hot tears filled his eyes and threatened to crest over, running phantom rivers down his bruised cheeks. He struggled to choke back sob as the adrenaline faded and reality tided over like the frothy waves before him.

(Who do I look to now, and just exactly where is the hope in *this*?? Sure I managed to help make things right, but what am I supposed to do with a lifetime of emptiness?? Kyoko, I need you...please be with me...)

The sound of steps behind him echoed off the concrete, falling listlessly against his ears. Probably Hina, he guessed (hoped), swiping his sleeve across his face to try to muster up. He hissed in pain when the contact stung thanks to the many wounds Munakata and Sakakura had inflicted over the course of this final killing game. He resolved to put his physical and emotional pain on the backburner the second he turned around however, for his friend's sake. Hina needed to see a brave face right now.

Taking a breath, Makoto turned and saw a ghost. 

His heart stopped. 

Time stopped. 

Everything just...*stopped*. The Earth seemed to pause it's spinning and all logic ceased to exist.

His eyes widened and his mouth fell open in shock as he stared ahead of him, hardly daring to breathe lest he lose the vision. The ghost of her stood before him, vibrant violet eyes meeting his as his world crashed and morphed into complete and total nothingness around him.

Except...

...except that it wasn't her ghost. It was...

"K-Kiri...?" 

His broken voice shook with his hands, and he was conscious of her blood on the right one - the memory of her pale face and still chest and no heartbeat, *no heartbeat*, the terror that was still with him as he woke up after the fourth time limit. In the darkest recesses of his mind, he was still in the building under the ocean with Hina and Mitarai, shouting desperately for Kyoko to hear him, to *please* not die for him like this...

"Makoto." 

Her voice was real. *She* was real...blessedly real. Beautiful in the glow of the setting sun, breathtaking against the fiery sky. Her eyes were his source of solace, her gentle smile was too much, too much for him to take...

He took note of the patch over her left eye and the bandages criss-crossing over her arms and neck. More evidence that she was real, not an apparition merely conjured up by his broken heart. She'd been saved.

Somehow, Kyoko Kirigiri had come back from the dead.

What...who...how?? He'd thought that she was gone, that there was no hope for her (or for him) left. And yet here she was now, alive, *alive* and waiting for him. The how didn't matter. Nothing mattered, really. Only she did. Kyoko took a few slow steps forward, then began walking towards him in earnest. 

Makoto didn't know when he began to move. He was in a trance, there was no goal except to focus on her eyes and getting to her as his legs seemed to move as though he were possessed, completely out of his own body. He barely registered that she was still moving towards him as well, the sound of their footsteps and breathing and names being spoken whirling in his hazy mind as she grew nearer.

But he knew when he began to run to her, and he knew that he was smiling his joy, finally allowing the tears to fall, because he could feel the euphoria bubbling up from his chest, he could feel the wetness and the sting of salt on his cuts as finally, finally, he reached her.

They both halted a mere few feet apart, hungry eyes taking the other in as if coming to terms with the fact that the end of the world had happened earlier that day. And now, this was their new dawn. 

A dawn at sunset; an ending of grief and revival of hope. 

She was beautiful to him, *so* beautiful. From the long hair that framed her lovely face and the prettiest eyes he'd ever seen. He drank his fill of looking at her, so overwhelmed he thought he may faint. Makoto slowly sank to his knees.

More tears spilled and then his breath was stolen as Kyoko crouched down to maintain eye contact with him.

"Hey," she said with a smile, her voice hoarse but musical to him in that moment. "I told you I'd always be on your side. Remember?"

He couldn't speak, so he nodded instead, his mind struggling to catch up and make sense of how a miracle had taken place before him. She'd come back. She'd come back to him.

Slowly she reached out to touch his shoulder in an attempt to steady him. He was shaking. At the physical reassurance that this was no sweet dream but rather real life in real time, relief tore through Makoto like a supernatural force. He threw his arms around her and pulled her into a tight embrace, crying into her neck. Her arms slowly came up to hug him back, and he thought he heard her let out a shaky breath herself as she tried to fight her own tears. But they fell against his cheek and he knew that she'd given in.

The price he'd had to pay for peace had been almost devastatingly high. As he breathed her in, he made a mental note to pray and thank any higher power that existed for delivering Kyoko from the evil they'd faced. In the final killing game, and every game before.

They held onto each other for what seemed like an eternity as the sun's last few rays ignited water and skyline. Makoto lifted his head up to meet her eyes, and found that hers shone with intensity as she matched his gaze.

Just before the water drowned the sky and the darkness of night faded everything out, he leaned in. Their lips met in a silent promise of love and sacrifice as the world righted itself once again.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading! This was based on an idea I shared with my brother after we finished Side-Hope a few weeks ago (again at like 4am). We were a little disappointed that there wasn't a clearer depiction of Kyoko's revival and wondered what a joyful reunion between her and Makoto would have looked like. So I heatedly jotted down what I wish we'd gotten for the final scene of Hope instead, before the famous epilogue with Makoto and Kyoko back at Hope's Peak. ("Yeah I don't get this either. Pretty sure I died.") Haha.
> 
> Anyhow, really hope you guys enjoyed today's fic! This prompt turned out a bit shorter than my first two, but I'm making up for that with my longest addition coming tomorrow. Get ready for some angst, talks about emotional trauma, and recovery.


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